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Well guys I think some of you have put me off for now but to be making it clear I was talking about a desktop or imac not a laptop.

Though there seems to be a lot of unnecessary Mac hate going off.

P.S to the haters: I've been building my own PC's for the better part of two decades, fancied something different.

Ah right. Well in that case I'd say, stick to it! If you buy yourself a beautiful 27" iMac you'll love it for about six months, and then either you'll have some kind of issue with it (like screen problems that the imacs suffer from) and have to send the entire thing away, or you'll want to upgrade and find out its stupidly expensive.

A guy I work with had a Mac Pro Desktop, wanted to upgrade the GPU. Apple wanted to charge him twice the going rate for an ATI card that. He said screw that, and bought a HD6770 off dabs. Turned out apple used a different power connector and he had to buy a special adapter off ebay to power it. After all that it still wouldn't work because he had to flash the firmware or something. He got horrible annoyed, gave up and sold me the HD6770 for about 75% what he paid. I happily stuck it in my 4 year old machine and it ran without issue.

Macs "just work" as long as you're prepared to pay apple lots of money to fix things you could sort out yourself on a PC

Basic computer usage isn't everything. Consequently, have you heard of the term "core curriculum?"

I suspect we're actually debating over nothing here. I was trying to argue that being able to use a computer these days (and in the future) doesn't require you to know anything about how computers work, or to be able to fix anything but the most basic of issues. 10 years ago that was not the case.

Of course I agree that everyone should be able to use a computer but for most people that means learning email, word processing and browsing the internet. Teaching anything beyond that to someone who isn't interested is pointless and it's that niche that Macs fill.

They call them by their big brother's names (with some small differences) and make sure to leave out the telltale "M" when labeling these cards. Make no mistake: These are MOBILE GPUs (or at least closer to mobile GPUs) and not as powerful as their desktop counterparts.

They call them by their big brother's names (with some small differences) and make sure to leave out the telltale "M" when labeling these cards. Make no mistake: These are MOBILE GPUs (or at least closer to mobile GPUs) and not as powerful as their desktop counterparts.

Indeed. The newer Imacs might be able to run WoW ok, but they aren't really state of the art when it comes to GPU performance, and you can't upgrade them. Essentially they put them in there because Adobe apps like Photoshop now take advantage of GPU, but they aren't exactly as demanding as modern PC games so no need of Apple to go the whole hog and put a full GPU in.

Indeed. The newer Imacs might be able to run WoW ok, but they aren't really state of the art when it comes to GPU performance, and you can't upgrade them. Essentially they put them in there because Adobe apps like Photoshop now take advantage of GPU, but they aren't exactly as demanding as modern PC games so no need of Apple to go the whole hog and put a full GPU in.

Also a full GPU in an AIO design would turn it into a hotplate. The system would need some serious cooling.

I don't see any reason for anyone to buy a Mac over a PC unless they plan on producing audio.

Been DJing for a decade and writing music for two, all on Windows and even DOS. I've heard your argument many times before, mickygor, but I don't understand it. Never have I felt that my operating system got in the way of my creative ambitions. All the major studio applications (Pro Tools, FLStudio, Traktor, Sound Forge) are available on both platforms but Windows and Linux have far more free and open source music creation and mastering tools than Mac ever had.

OSX is very nice and has some handy conventions for common tasks, but the same is true of Windows.

The question shouldn't be which OS is the best, but which has the applications you want to use. PC has many, many more applications than Mac so that's always been the deciding factor for me. If your priority is to play games on a computer then the choice should be obvious, but if you simply want to surf and communicate then any OS will do.

Top of the line hahahahahaha! And as for audio creation. I do that on a PC, no idea why you would want to create video or audio on a Mac when you can cheaply build a monstrous PC to do it for half the cost with a fraction of the render time.

Unless of course you want the logo on the laptop you carry around with you. Because... you know, you're a creative type and you need to be branded as such, sigh. My experience has shown me that the idea that Macs are better for this stuff comes from the industries being full of dickheads, ahem sorry, pretentious... No I can't think of a nice way of saying it, but I think you get the idea.

My experience has shown me that the idea that Macs are better for this stuff comes from the industries being full of dickheads, ahem sorry, pretentious... No I can't think of a nice way of saying it, but I think you get the idea.

Well, back in the 80's you could only get design and creative software like Aldus Pagemaker on Mac. Then software publishers realized (gasp!) that you could sell more copies by making your product available on the platform used by the greatest number of people. That was 30 years ago so I have no idea how this outdated concept continues to perpetuate.

I've got a Macbook Pro yet I spend most of my time on Windows 7 bootcamp.
I've also got a top of the line PC with all the hardware required for a Hackintosh, yet have no interest in going that route.

Mac hardware is nice to have for the ability to develop native iOS apps and run some cool open source web frameworks, but other than that there really isn't a lot for the power user in my opinion.
As for gaming, my top of the line 2.8Ghz 17" Macbook Pro with 8GB ram and an Intel X25-M 160GB SSD can barely manage 20fps on a dx10 game like Resident Evil 5. It's closer to an ipad than a gaming laptop in that regard.

If you are the kind of person who is constantly annoyed at using win7 or come home to find something in your custom made PC has gone belly up, Mac OSX is definitely for you. Otherwise, there isn't a pot of gold waiting for you at the end of the rainbow when you switch if that's shat you're expecting.

If you like being elbow-deep in your machine fixing in the lastest gizmo that you bought on eBay to make your system even cooler then it was, then Macs are very definitely not designed with you in mind. If that's what you like, enjoy.

Personally, I have a 15" Macbook Pro that I have bootcamped with Win7 for games; apart from that, I spend the majority of my time in MacOS for work and everything else. It's a far better user experience than trying to do just about anything in Windows. I love MacOS, but then I don't particularly like messing around inside my machine, I just want it to work.

As a side note, the only time I've ever had any issues with either of my Macbook Pros (this is the second that I've had), Apple fixed it for free.

As a side note, the only time I've ever had any issues with either of my Macbook Pros (this is the second that I've had), Apple fixed it for free.

So will Alienware, Dell, PC World, Currys, Amazon, CEX, Time and any other retailer with a 12 month warranty. Which is most of them.
The price you're paying for a Mac it should have 24 hour call out same day support. Compared to Apple's prices paying the ~£70 for an extended warranty is a freakin bargain.

“People will kill you over time, and how they’ll kill you is with tiny, harmless phrases, like “be realistic”
― Dylan Moran

I've used Macs since I was five (20 years) and PCs since last November. Long post short: my next Mac will be a Hackintosh but if Linux ever becomes a viable alternative to Windows for gaming my PC will run that instead. Not because I dislike Windows, I'd just rather not pay for it if at all possible as I only use it for gaming and Chrome.

Edit:damn, I really should read the last page as well as the first before responding.